UPDATED: Feb. 4, 2013, 5:17 p.m. EST. The seven-day Alabama standoff between law enforcement and a man who took a 5-year-old boy hostage came to an end on Monday afternoon, according to CNN. The child was safely rescued and officials confirmed that the kidnapper is dead.

An Alabama community is mourning the loss of a heroic bus driver who was shot and killed after refusing to let a child get off his vehicle.

A 5-year-old autistic boy is currently being held in an underground bunker after a gunman boarded a stopped school bus on Tuesday in Midland City, Ala., and snatched the kindergartener, the Associated Press reports. But before the shooter got away with the child, the brave bus driver, Charles Albert Poland, Jr., 66, stood up to the gunman, but was shot multiple times and killed.

"We are mourning a hero, 66 year-old Charles Poland, who gave his life to protect twenty-one students who are now home safely with their families,” Dale County Schools Superintendent Donny Bynum, said in a statement, according to WCTV.

Authorities have identified the suspect as Jimmy Lee Dykes, whom they described as "paranoid and combative," the Associated Press reported. The child's name has not yet been released.

"I wish to God she had had an m-4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out ... and takes him out and takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids," Gohmert said of slain principal Dawn Hochsprung on <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/louie-gohmert-guns_n_2311379.html"><em>Fox News Sunday</em></a>. He argued that shooters often choose schools because they know people will be unarmed.